Internet System Lets Parents Spy on Day Care

High-quality child care is supposed to give parents the peace of
mind they need to be productive during the workday. Still, knowing that
they can use their desktop computers to check in on the little ones via
the Internet is likely to be a tempting diversion.

A small but growing number of child-care centers are installing
stationary cameras that produce digital photographs that parents can
view when they log on to the World Wide Web. The photos are updated
every 30 seconds.

The technology is being marketed as a high-tech way to relieve
working parents' anxiety about putting their young children in child
care. And for some center owners, it's also the newest way to stand out
in a highly competitive crowd.

"We were looking for something that no one else had," said Joni
Tubbergen, a co-owner of Bright Start Preschool and Day Care in
Freemont, Mich., which opened just two months ago. "It says we are
confident enough about our program that we're on camera."

But some child advocates say these systems are no replacement for
real parent participation and trusting relationships with
caregivers.

"The desire to be the fly on the wall is so strong, I don't blame
parents for wanting to have this," said Ellen Lubell, a spokeswoman for
the Child Care Action Campaign, a New York City-based advocacy
organization. "But we're concerned that some parents will think that if
they can tune in, then they can monitor the situation. They'll forgo
some of the ongoing involvement they need to have."

Is It Safe?

"Kiddie cams," as they've been called, also raise questions about
privacy and security, despite the developers' assurances that the
programs are safe from pedophiles, for example.

"We use an operating system that hasn't been cracked yet," said Pat
Martin, a co-owner of the Simplex Knowledge Co., which now has its "I
See You" program installed in four centers around the country. The
first was installed about a year ago.

A variety of Internet security devices are used, and even if someone
gained access to the photos on the Web, he could only trace them back
to White Plains, N.Y., where Simplex is located, according to Ms.
Martin. The hacker, she said, wouldn't be able to find the name or the
location of the center from the I See You site.

Most centers using the equipment have cameras in each classroom as
well as one trained on the playground.

For parents to get onto the site, they have to type in a password.
And if the codes ever fall into the wrong hands, they can easily be
changed, supporters of the idea point out.

Jane Frost, whose 3-year-old son Casey attends the Children's Corner
in Ridgefield, Conn., which was the first center to use the Simplex
system, said she's never been concerned about the security risks.

"No more than someone walking into that door and walking out with my
child," she said.

Using the program allows her to stay better connected and follow up
on what Casey did during the day. "It makes me feel more comfortable
that I put my child in day care every day," she said.

But some people still have trouble with the concept, no matter how
many safeguards it may have. "Parents have got a right to know what's
going on during the day, but how many of us would want to work under
constant video surveillance?" said Lewis Maltby, the director of the
Princeton, N.J.-based Workplace Rights Project of the American Civil
Liberties Union.

But Simplex's Ms. Martin said the cameras are actually a way for a
center's staff members to prove to parents how hard they work and to
show them what their children are learning.

The programs are also a way to keep out-of-state grandparents and
traveling parents plugged in.

"We kind of feel that this system is putting the day-care industry
out front," Ms. Martin said. "If we can promote early child care, it's
going to benefit everybody."

But Marcy Whitebook, a co-director of the National Center for the
Early Childhood Workforce, a Washington group focusing on wages and
working conditions in centers, said she's afraid that most people will
view these systems as another way to catch negligent workers.

And most child-care advocates believe the money that centers are
spending on such systems--which run about $350 a month--could instead
be spent on higher pay for workers or better classroom
materials.

Coming to K-12?

With the systems already operating in child-care centers, what's to
keep administrators from using them to give busy parents with older
children a glimpse into K-12 classrooms, especially now that so many
schools have sophisticated World Wide Web sites?

Ms. Martin said she has already received a few phone calls from
public schools, but all of them are still exploring the possible ways
such a program could be used in a public school setting.

Most observers suggest that this is not the kind of technology
schools need.

"We're really into providing information to our parents, but we
don't do things just for technology's sake. It has to have value," said
Kent Keel, the director of information technology for the Kent, Wash.,
school district, where all of the 36 schools have Web sites.

Even Bright Start's Ms. Tubbergen said center operators need to "go
in with their eyes open."

She noted that it may be easier to open a new center with the system
already installed rather than to put one in an established business,
where the teachers and the parents would have to agree to it.

Another downside, she said, is that pictures can be deceiving.

For example, a parent recently called Ms. Tubbergen after checking
the Web page several times and seeing someone she thought was her child
in the "timeout" chair--a disciplinary measure for children who have
been acting up. The mother wanted to know why her son had been there
for so long. The truth was that her son had not been in timeout at all.
A young visitor, who had shoes resembling her son's, was sitting in the
corner observing the class.

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